Eugene-Springfield fire camp trains teen girls for firefighting careers

Fifteen teenage girls spent the week at Eugene-Springfield Fire’s 15th annual Young Women’s Fire Camp, a free program built to give local teens a direct look at firefighting as a career. The campers learned to use firefighting equipment, practiced emergency-response skills and were set to finish the week by putting out live fires.

The camp ran June 22-26 and was open to female-identifying youth ages 16 to 19. Hosted annually by Eugene Springfield Fire, it paired hands-on fire-service activities with lessons meant to build self-confidence, teamwork and leadership. Heidi Carson, who manages the camp, said the goal was to push participants beyond their comfort zones so they could gain confidence and picture themselves in a profession they might not have considered otherwise.

That focus on recruitment matters in a field that still draws far fewer women than men. Women make up about 5% of career firefighters nationwide and 11% of volunteer firefighters, a gap that leaves fire agencies across Oregon and the country with a narrow applicant pool. In Lane County, where Eugene and Springfield both rely on steady hiring to keep crews staffed, camps like this one are meant to broaden who sees a future in the job.

The training also lines up with the profession’s labor outlook. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects firefighter employment will grow 3% from 2024 to 2034, with about 27,100 openings a year on average. That makes early exposure to the work, and to the physical and mental demands of the job, part of a longer-term workforce pipeline rather than a one-week experience.

The camp’s alumni already show that the pipeline can reach beyond motivation and into action. In a 2024 KVAL report, alum Cedaira Thomson, fresh off firefighter academy, said, “I don’t think I ever would’ve been interested in this career had I not gone through fire camp for two years.” Earlier coverage showed the program had been running at least since 2013, when it was in its 13th year, and the 2026 camp marked its 15th, giving Eugene-Springfield Fire one of its most visible efforts to shape the next generation of firefighters.